New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog

Once again our Partner Howard Hershenhorn was forced to respond to the ludicrous assertion by lawyers for master rigger William Rapetti who chose to rely on four pre-used and worn-out yellow polyester straps — called “slings,” — to secure a five-ton metal brace to the crane’s mast that Wayne Blinder, the Crane operator was at fault. The crane’s boom and its cab — with Wayne Bleidner, 51, helpless at the controls — broke off from the rest of the crane and catapulted onto the roof of a four-story brownstone on East 50th Street. Howard, quoted in The New York Post stated;

“It really cries of desperation,” says Bleidner’s lawyer Howard Hershenhorn, who is handling the family’s suit against Rapetti’s company.

“There have been four separate entities that have looked at this accident objectively — OSHA, the Department of Buildings, an engineering firm hired by the Department of Buildings, and Lehigh University, where the slings were sent,” Hershenhorn said.

Our Partner, Howard Hershenhorn, who is leading our representation of the family of the crane operator Wayne Bleidner, who was killed when a 200-foot-tall rig crashed down on a dense New York City block, killing seven people, leaving a gash of destruction near the United Nations and raising questions about the safety of the steel spindles that build skyscrapers, responded to the absurd claim by the rigger’s attorney who is being prosecuted for manslaughter, that some responsibility may lie with a crane operator who was killed in the collapse stating;

“Instead of Rapetti stepping up and taking responsibility for what multiple agencies and multiple independent parties have determined to be his fault, he now, in the most cowardly way, is going to blame the victim.” Read More.

Howard is recognized as one of the leading Construction Accident Lawyers in New York having tried numerous construction accident cases as well as speaking on them for The New York State Bar Association.

For those who have practiced in the area of New York Construction Accidents both plaintiff and defense attorneys can agree on one point: the law interpreting New York Labor Law, Section 240(1) is constantly changing. The pendulum swings back and forth. For a brief discussion of the ever changing law click here. With regard to falling objects, prior to 2001 if an object at a New York Construction Site fell striking a worker the plaintiff won. Then in May of 2001 that changed with the decision by The Court of Appeals in Narducci v Manhasset Bay Assoc., 96 N.Y.2d 259, 268, 750 N.E.2d 1085, 727 N.Y.S.2d 37 [2001]) in which The Court held;

“With respect to falling objects, Labor Law § 240 (1) applies where the falling of an object is related to “a significant risk inherent in … the relative elevation … at which materials or loads must be positioned or secured” ( Rocovich v Consolidated Edison Co., supra, 78 NY2d, at 514). Thus, for section 240 (1) to apply, a plaintiff must show more than simply that an object fell causing injury to a worker. A plaintiff must show that the object fell, while being hoisted or secured, because of the absence or inadequacy of a safety device of the kind enumerated in the statute…”

What followed was a rash of dismissed “falling object” cases. Then in 2005 The Court in Outar v City of New York, 5 NY3d 731, 731, 832 N.E.2d 1186, 799 N.Y.S.2d 770 affirmed summary judgment for the plaintiff who had been injured when struck by a falling Dolly holding “The elevation differential between the dolly and plaintiff was sufficient to trigger Labor Law § 240 (1)’s protection, and the dolly was an object that required securing for the purposes of the undertaking…”